By Charles Okeibunor
In my time as a student in the University of Benin, many of the public toilets were less than charitable, you combatted flies in other to find your posture and rhythm as you answered the inevitable call of nature.
It was in one of such toilets, I saw a curious inscription written on the wall ostensibly by one of its previous users…, the author scribbled 1million flies cannot be wrong, eat shit today!
Those words have gotten me thinking.
I no longer believe in Democracy ipsissima verba. It is a model that works sometimes for some people in some cases. It is not a silver bullet.
A misguided mob can rob the whole group of progress because they constitute the greater number than the informed few.
Leadership therefore is the sanity that checkmates any shade of democratic insanity.
When there is superior established knowledge, it is the role of the leader to avoid the risk of subjecting it to democratic choices.
Rather he/she must go with the knowledge because democracy can invalidate that knowledge and leave everyone helpless or hopeless.
This is why Leadership is sacred. Don’t lead because you desire the allure of authority or because you are popular.
Lead because you have the mental, physical and spiritual capacity to make decisions bearing in mind that you are willing to lay down your life first when the consequences of those choices arise, without trading blames.
History has shown that man needs subjective guidance. And cannot be left to himself by himself.
For example, in the Holy Bible, God gave Adam and Eve democratic abilities to exercise their freewill within defined boundaries, yet they chose to touch and eat from the self same fruit to their pain.
He had to step in, ameliorate the consequence of their choice and subjectively guide them out of Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life lest they be damned beyond redemption.
I perceive that a significant amount of societal pain today is traceable to according democracy as a model more responsibilities than it can possibly handle.
Democracy of opinion, Yes. Democracy of Choice, No.
In other words, a leader must objectively allow the democracy of opinion to accommodate every view at all levels, from where he can make a subjective informed choice.
And that choice must not always return to plenary, lest it be defeated by democracy😊😊.
Majority may win the day only to ruin the year, decade or century.
Let’s moderate democracy before it becomes demo crazy.
C’est finis.
©Charles Okeibunor
